I grew up in Metro Detroit in a family that worked in automotive and steel. The hollowing out of industrial communities didn’t happen all at once. It happened through successive waves of underinvestment that widened the gap between places that could adapt and places that couldn’t. Once that gap opened, it showed up in who got trained, who got hired and which communities remained part of the industrial future.
That pattern is emerging again. The Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book shows a manufacturing rebound, but the gains are uneven. Some firms are capturing new demand tied to data centers and energy infrastructure. Others face rising input costs with no way to absorb them. Companies that can invest in automation keep compounding capability. Companies that can’t are forced into defense mode.
This is a K-shaped divide, and the danger is that, left unchecked, it feeds on itself. The firms and regions pulling ahead build skills, adopt new technology and attract investment. The ones falling behind lose ground in ways that eventually show up in workers’ opportunities and communities’ economic strength. If we’ve learned anything from the last 50 years of industrial disruption, we know these gaps don’t self-correct.
The answer won’t come from the private sector alone. The internet didn’t emerge from market forces. It grew out of sustained public investment in ARPANET, which established the open protocols that became a platform for private innovation. And it succeeded because no single investment carried the weight. It took research funding, open standards, private enterprise and public infrastructure working together.
Manufacturing needs a similar approach utilizing public-private models that build shared infrastructure, lower the risk of early adoption and broaden access to the tools that let capability compound over time. A widening capability divide won’t yield to any single fix. If the problem is layered, the solution must be too.
What does that look like in practice? Consider Anthony Maurice. He started by designing custom assistive devices to make life more dignified for his son, who has significant mobility challenges. He found his way to Project DIAMOnD, a Michigan initiative pairing hands-on additive manufacturing training with access to industrial-grade equipment. Six months before enrolling, he didn’t own a 3D printer. After completing the program, he was running more than 20 in his Madison Heights shop. He moved from interest to skill, from skill to production and from production to entrepreneurship. Another participant called the program “a pathway out of poverty.”
What made the difference was how the pieces fit together. Hands-on training connected to industrial-grade equipment connected to real commercial pathways. When education, production and market access work as one system, people build lasting capability rather than check a box.
After World War II, the GI Bill proved this principle at national scale. It invested directly in the capability of millions of returning veterans, including my grandparents. The opportunities they gained through that public funding provided upward mobility that built generational wealth my entire family still benefits from today. By funding college and vocational training, the GI Bill created the most skilled workforce the world had ever seen and proved that investing in individual potential produces decades of broad-based growth.
We need that same ambition applied to manufacturing today. Policymakers should invest in models that connect training to equipment to commercialization, tailored to what different communities actually need. In some places that means earlier exposure in middle and high schools. In others it means stronger partnerships with community colleges and small manufacturers or more access to secure digital tools that allow ideas to move into production.
Manufacturing still contributes trillions in national output and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in Michigan alone. Everyone agrees it matters. The harder question is whether more workers, businesses and communities will have a real chance to participate in where it’s heading.
The real test of industrial policy isn’t what we invent. It’s who we equip to rise with it.
Eric Davis is the COO of Project DIAMOnD, an initiative that is part of Automation Alley.
Eric DavisProject DIAMOnD
